Issues with job submission/download and general workflow

[Anri-Konomi]

Hello,

First of all, thank you for providing the restatis package. While using it, I’ve run into a few issues that I’d like to ask about:

1. Job submission & download

• I can submit jobs with gen_table(..., job = TRUE), but when I later try to download them, I get errors such as:
  • Error in .gen_api_cached(...) : could not find function ".gen_api_cached"
  • Error: The API call(s) have been tried with GET and POST methods, but were unsuccessful (error message: ''curl_modify_url' is not an exported object from 'namespace:curl''). Check your specifications or try again later.

2. General workflow

• Could you clarify the correct workflow for submitting jobs, checking their status, and downloading the finished results as flat tables? I want to retrieve all available years for multiple datasets. What’s the recommended way to do this with restatis?
• Since large GENESIS tables often require job submission and later retrieval, what would you recommend as the best practice for:
  • Submitting multiple jobs
  • Checking their status
  • Downloading them reliably (e.g., as CSV or flat tables)
• Any guidance or examples would be very helpful. Maybe this would also benefit other users who run into similar issues.

Thanks again for your work on the package!

[yannikbuhl]

On jobs and downloads: The error message concerning CURL has been addressed in issue #65, so see there for more information. The error concerning could not find function ".gen_api_cached" can be solved by re-installing the package. We will provide a fix for the problem with the next release.

Regarding workflow: Yes, you are on the right track. There is no other way than creating the job, waiting for it to finish (checking the status after some time) and then using gen_download_job() do fetch the data. Jobs are by designed queued and take some time to be provided, although they sometimes finish fast, depending on the workload of the server. Note that especially for Regionalstatistik.de there might be some bugs at the moment regarding the download of large tables, although I do not know any details, but the possible solution might involve updates to restatis after the fixes are deployed on Regionalstatistik's behalf.